This is all relative of course. Many what have you's, ins and outs, etc. Some guys were forced to play in SB lineups (AA) while others only played against good teams (KB). So, feel free to explain these results away at your leisure.

Coincidently, our top 4 defensive players, Kwame, Amir, AI!, and Sheed are all breakeven or better from a +/- standpoint. Maybe a similar coincidence that the top defensive team almost always wins the NBA title?

Afflalo- The big abberation here seems to be AA. With him on the court, we score the most points and give up the 3rd most points. He does have an eFG of .506, so it's not like he's a terrible offensive player. But realistically, we know that he's opportunistic on O and a very good defender. The only thing I can think of is that a) SB tends to score more points and give up more points (faster pace) and b) AA spends a higher percentage of time in SB than the others.

Kwame- The other obvious stand-out is Kwame. As I showed earlier, Kwame has played against a very strong strength of schedule (average team would be Denver). Not only that, but the reason he's usually in is because the other team has a big, dominant center. So, he's banging with the Shaq's, Yao's, Ilgauskas's of the league. Can we at least agree that KB is a good defender against big centers? We have our worst offense with KB in there, but that is probably b/c of SOS and shot blocking C's.

AI- How did AI show up toward the top of our defensive ranking? Is it possible that his quickness, steals, and "ball watching" is actually outweighing his slight build? He's had his share of SB time logged. But he's also spent plenty of time with Amir, Sheed, and Tay, which would mask any defensive deficiency. The amazing thing is that he's tied for 8th on the offensive end. Who would have predicted that? Not sure what to conclude here. I'll keep an open mind.

Amir vs. Max- We score about 2 points more with Max on the floor, but we give up about 9 points more. This is a huge spread. I would be tempted to say that a lot of this can be explained away by the fact that Amir has been playing with starters mainly while Max has been out there with Dyess and some crazy combos. However, the same results were true last year when they were both bench players. The defensive spread last year was 8 points between these 2 players... and we scored 1 point more with Max in, so same pattern. I like Maxiell and all, but I have to conclude that there is something about him that hurts us on defense. Not sure if it is his defensive rebounding, his size, his positioning, or what. I think that we are blinded by his attitude and highlights.

Fabio Just for Lee, I'll mention that Herrmann really does suck on defense. He's not really an NBA player though, so it's unfair to criticize him heavily. On offense, he's ranking 2nd best on the team, but these numbers could be skewed by GT, playing against crappy teams, and a pure small sample size issues (he's played the same amount as Bynum).

Conclusion So, when you are praising a player or ripping on them for their defense, take these numbers into consideration. They are not the be all end all, but they may indicate that you are seeing certain things and not others. These numbers are highly correlated, so separation can either mean that a player is much better than another in that category or that there is an outside factor causing the difference (e.g. player A always plays in SB while player B always gets to play with good defensive players like Sheed... or Kwame?).

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Such a great post. You are much stronger when you have balance (and watch those averages). In honor of your efforts, I think you would enjoy this talk about the power of open data and understanding what data (at times) can point toward:

Maxiell: Scored on him 4 times. Drove by him once, resulting in a score. Missed 2 shots over him.

Afflalo: Scored once on him when he was picked. score once when he intentionally fouled a player on a fast break. Missed 1 over him.

Rip: drove by him once, resulting in a score. Missed 4 shots over him.

Tay: scored on Tay once. Missed 1 shot over him.

Stuck: got scored on once. Let his man drive by him once resulting in a score.

AI: got scored on once when he was picked. Sheed didn't help b/c man in paint would have been wide open.

The biggest thing I notice from this quarter is that Milwaukee attacked Dyess and Maxiell relentlessly. 13 possessions were pointed at those two resulting in 19 points. Rip was our best stopper with 4 stops.

I wasn't trying to show that they were good or bad. Just trying to show how we are getting scored on and how things work out with switches, etc. Seeing if there are any patterns in the way other teams attack us.

I'd really like to hear another team's gameplan for how to attack the Pistons this year vs. previous years. From what I can tell in this small sample, they go right at AI, Max, and Dyess. They also tried Tay and Rip, but were getting shut down pretty good.

Current standings in TS% (combines 2's, 3's, and FT's). This helps guys like AI and Stuckey.

Amir J.- .610

JMaxi - .563

Brown- .540

Sheed- .530

Afflalo- .529

Stuck- .525

Dyess- .517

Bynum- .514

Prince- .512

Iversn- .508

Fabio- .506

Much tighter grouping with TS% than with regular FG%. The reason is that for a guy like Amir, his TS% is almost the same as his regualr FG%, while for AI, it increases by almost 100 basis points b/c of all the free throws. Sheed's go up a lot b/c of all his 3's.

When looking at this, I find it interesting that Afflalo is our most efficient guard. That's a testament to his willingness to attack the basket and his improved outside stroke. Prince and AI are pretty low. AI's trends have been better recently since he and Rip have divorced. Our top 3 are all garbage men, so they rarely shoot unless they got it.

The most impressive in my mind is Sheed.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the go-to perimeter players will often get stuck with the ball at the end of the shot clock and have to force it. It seems like no matter what list I make, Herrmann is at the very end of it. He shouldn't feel too bad though, since he's essentially tied with a superstar.

Pre 911 or post? I really like the changes to security, i get thru chicago in 5-10 mins now at most compared to spending close to an hour on a regular basis...

if your spending 4 days a year now.... you fly alot lol

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Definitely post.

You have to time a couple to see how long it really takes you - it adds up pretty quick. And not all airports have decent premier lines so they take longer. Even at ten minutes per, if you fly a hundred times...

There is a tension, peculiar to basketball, between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. On the baseball field, it would be hard for a player to sacrifice his team’s interest for his own. Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team one: by doing what’s best for himself, the player nearly always also does what is best for his team. “There is no way to selfishly get across home plate,” as Morey puts it. “If instead of there being a lineup, I could muscle my way to the plate and hit every single time and damage the efficiency of the team — that would be the analogy. Manny Ramirez can’t take at-bats away from David Ortiz. We had a point guard in Boston who refused to pass the ball to a certain guy.” In football the coach has so much control over who gets the ball that selfishness winds up being self-defeating. The players most famous for being selfish — the Dallas Cowboys’ wide receiver Terrell Owens, for instance — are usually not so much selfish as attention seeking. Their sins tend to occur off the field.

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I knew that was the case in bball, but I guess I never thought of how it is really not the case in other sports. Bball does seem to be the one sport where you can really be a stat hog and where you get recognized in a positive way for dominating the action, even if it is not in an efficient way.

Also, reading the part about Mutumbo and his finger wag (and how it would be better to just start the break) reminded me of what Bill Russell was talking about when they interviewed him at the all star game. He basically said that his favorite dunk was the one where he would curl on the baseline and do a reverse dunk without touching the rim so that he could immediately get back on defense. Bill Russell was optimizing for his team, not himself. There are hundreds of small things you can do that make you look less impressive, but that help the team.

This was also pretty cool:

Battier privately went to Coach Rick Adelman and told him to bench him and bring him in when Ginóbili entered the game. “No one in the N.B.A. does that,” Morey says. “No one says put me on the bench so I can guard their best scorer all the time.”